Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: How and why we talk

How and why we talk

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, How and why we talk

John Gallagher hears about Gaelic consonants, tongue shapes and accent prejudice

Accents in Gaelic, from Greater Manchester and the science behind why we make conversation in new research from Rob Drummond, Claire Nance, Andrea Smith and Shane O'Mara

Ultrasound tests in Burnley market hall will help the phonetics lab at Lancaster University explore tongue positions and accents as part of this year's Being Human Festival. Claire Nance joins John Gallagher to explain more. Alongside them are Rob Drummond from Manchester Met University, author of a new book You're All Talk, Andrea Smith from the University of Suffolk, who is researching early radio voices and Shane O'Mara, Professor of Experimental Brain Research in Trinity College Dublin, who has been exploring why we converse.

Producer in Salford: Faith Lawrence 

Professor Claire Nance and her team from Lancaster University are at Burnley Market on Saturday 11th November.  The Being Human Festival runs a series of public events across the UK showcasing humanities research at universities.  It runs November 9th - 18th  https://www.beinghumanfestival.org/ 
Dr Andrea Smith is a Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Suffolk 
Professor Shane O'Mara teaches at Trinity College Dublin and is the author of books including In Praise of Walking and Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds 

Professor Rob Drummond's book You're All Talk is out now and you can hear more from him in these podcasts 
New Thinking: City Talk https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm  and New Thinking: Accents  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d66mtl 
And we have other discussions about speech:  
Sadie Ryan, Lynda Clark and Allison Koenecke in an episode called Speech, Voice, Accents and AI https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000srbn
New Thinking: Language the Victorians and Us https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dmjgwx 
New Thinking: Language Loss and Revival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dw6ctr 
What is Speech? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3
What is Good Listening? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000djtd
The pros and cons of swearing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c0r4m
Language and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9
AI and creativity: what makes us human? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005nml

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